My use for carving and a grading tip

[mrware]

I got my Tormek a little over a year ago.  I enjoy using it.  It's fast and effective.  I use it to sharpen my wood carving tools.   A little background, I've been learning to carve for about a year and a half now and learned to sharpen my carving tools by hand using Arkansas stones, slip stones and a strop and am proficient with that method.

Essentially, the Tormek serves as a grinder when I need to put the bevel I want on a new tool or change or repair an existing one.  I own the regular stone that came with it.  Then I go to the Arkansas stones.   I don't strop much on a traditional strop since getting the Tormek.  I really like the leather wheels on the Tormek for that.  Someday I might pick up the Japanese waterstone.

Ok, so what about the grading tip?  As you know the original stone leaves pretty deep scratches and then you can grade it to make it function as a 1000 grit stone.  I've heard of people using fine diamond instead of the stone grader, but diamond is not so durable in my opinion and that would be a good way to shorten the life of your diamond stones.  What does last however is ceramic stones.

What I do to get a fine finish from the Tormek is this.  Grind until I'm satisfied with initial sharpness.  Then I use the stone grader and bring it to 1000 and do a little more grinding at that grit.  Then I take my Spyderco medium grit ceramic and use it just like the stone grader.  This makes the wheel finer still.  Then I finish grinding at that grit.  It's noticeably finer than the 1000 grit you can get with the stone grader. 

Ceramics are not so easy to wear out as Diamond and they are cheaper than a quality Diamond plate, so I think that makes it a win win. 

I'm happy to be able to get the deep scratches mostly out.  I can get the hint of a mirror finish starting with the use of the ceramic stone to grade. 

I think if I had the Japanese waterstone I could get the main bevel done on the Tormek and not need to use the bench stones.  I do use a fairly pronounced inside bevel on my gouges though and that requires hand work with slip stones to achieve, so I'm always going to need some stones and hand work anyway. 

Once sharp I touch up with the leather wheels and can stay sharp a long time before I need to go back to the stones. 

Anyway, that's how I generally use the Tormek for carving and how I squeeze a little more performance out of the stock wheel.

-  MR Ware

[Ken S]

Welcome to the forum, mrware. Your post is most interesting.

My experience with a diamond flattening plate concurs with your thought about diamonds not lasting forever. I used it to finish flattening a crystalon bench stone. It did the job, but only after much wear on the diamond plate.
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I have used a small ceramic bench stone instead of the leather honing wheel to remove the burr on the back of chisels. It can eliminate the dreaded "roundover", although careful technique and experience with the leather honing wheel can accomplish the same thing.

I have a Spyderco triangular sharpmaker. I will try your trick. Like using an electrical tie idea, using the Spyderco rod is inexpensive and takes only a minute. I do not see any negative side effects and I do see possible benefits.

Ken